But not a second passed before he felt a painful thud from behind--OUCH! It was the Shiny-Blue-Boulder beast again, with Sa-Noor back inside of it, no doubt controlling its thoughts and movements.

You Nasty Beast! Come out from that creature, and fight like a Demi-God shouted Gajandra as he once again tore open its side.

Sa-Noor pounced out of the beast and onto Gajandra.

"Invisible Mosquito!! You tried to wound my Beetle-Beast, which has given me such mobility that I can inflict my majick on ten times as many sleepers as before--Nay, ten times ten times!" She clawed at him with her fierce nails and got him in a headlock.

"Poisonous Matron of Mischief! You befuddle too much! You annoy all the inhabitants of my household with the loud sound you send through my soft palate. My throat is not an instrument for you to make music with!!" He punched her off and kicked at one of her seven noses.

But the Mystic Sa-Noor was too quick for the young prince. A side step, a two-step, a flying-kick and an instep, and she had Gajandra all a-tangle among her multiple blue limbs.

"Piteous Marmoset! Now you shall suffer for attempting to modify the behaviour of an inhabitant of the Spirit-World. Witness now the Wrath of Sa-Noor!!!"

And with that, she began squeezing his abdomen, constricting his diaphragm with one of her mighty snake-like limbs. To boot, her hellish fire-ball earrings were dangling near Gajandra's cheek, and scorching his skin with each contact.

"N-no!," cried Gajandra, who until then had never know defeat. As he struggled for his missing breath, his mind raced for an answer--why had Jutu abandoned him? What was that snide remark about finding 'the evil within' all about? Why had Jutu been so dismissive of him in his time of need?

Sa-Noor cackled and squoze, laughed and constricted, guffawed and subtracted needed personal volume-space.

As his vision dimmed, Gajandra could think only of Jutu's last words to him... "Eat it! . . . . Eat it!" Although he and Jutu had at times undergone mild contentiousness, never had Jutu so brazenly disobeyed a direct order. He had asked for a quick advice, and instead, Jutu had told him. . "Eat it!"

Eat it! The now-almost-lifeless Gajandra could still see the light of Sa-Noor's fireball earring that kept scorching his cheek. He craned his neck slightly, and the next time the earring swung his way, he snapped at it and swallowed it whole. The sensation of the fireball searing his throat blurred with the outraged screams of Sa-Noor and the release of her grip on his abdomen.

Gajandra gasped himself awake to find himself in his bed in the middle of the night. Out of his window he saw no signs of the festival. He made it to his toiletry room and gargled with mild pinejuice. Soon he was able to go back to sleep, and the next morning he awoke peacefully.

Gajandra found Old Jutu, who was busy finishing the last of his ricemeal breakfast.

"Jutu--Jutu! What happened? Did Sa-Noor infict the rasping on me last night?"

"No, Master. Not a roar or whelp."

"Then Sa-Noor must have been banished--but how?"

"Did you eat her fire?"

"Yes."

"Then your soft palate was scorched, thus reducing its size by 5 percent, sufficient to open up the necessary breathing space to prevent the rasping of Sa-Noor."

Gajandra thought about this for a while.

"Good Jutu, in my battle with Sa-Noor, for the longest time I thought you had abandoned me."

"Impossible, Noted One."

But you came to me in the apparition of this ridiculous purple dinosaur, and you told me to "Eat it."

"It helped, didn't it."

"Yes, in the end, 'Eat it' was the right advice."

"Excellent, Master Gajandra, now Bite Off will you?"

"The newly healed heir eyed the old man warily."

"I will assume you meant that 'in the right way,' Jutu, and thus will not have you flogged."

"Yes, Master."

But farther down the hall, Gajandra was almost certain he heard Jutu mutter the mysterious word, 'Prickface.'